Duolingo English Test Course for Students in China — Online with Certified Instructors

Where students from China apply — and what score each destination wants

Chinese applicants concentrate in the four systems where DET acceptance is strongest: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. More than 6,000 institutions accept it, and in the US the question is no longer whether a university takes DET but what number it wants.

Canadian minimums are tighter and more consistent: 120 at Toronto, Waterloo, Queen’s and Ottawa, 125 at UBC, 115–125 at McGill. Australian requirements spread wider, from about 105 to 120.

In the UK, DET is mainstream at universities including York, Sussex, Southampton, Hertfordshire, Sheffield Hallam, Portsmouth and UCLan, typically at 105–125 with subscore rules that often read “overall 120, no subscore below 110” — see our UK score requirements guide.

The pattern: bachelor’s admission usually sits at 95–120 and postgraduate programmes at 115–135. Find your programme in Duolingo’s accepting-institutions directory, then confirm with admissions.

Does anywhere in Greater China accept DET?

This is where plans quietly break. Hong Kong’s leading universities largely do not list the Duolingo English Test. HKU’s taught-postgraduate requirements name TOEFL, IELTS, GCE, IGCSE and the Cambridge Test of Proficiency — nothing else. CUHK’s non-JUPAS language requirements list IELTS 6.0, TOEFL iBT, SAT, ACT, IB, HKDSE and school qualifications, with no Duolingo entry.

So if Hong Kong is on your list, budget for IELTS or TOEFL there and use DET for your US, UK, Canadian and Australian applications. Singapore’s public universities are similarly traditional; confirm with admissions rather than assuming. Inside mainland China the DET plays no part in domestic admission — you meet it only through overseas or joint-venture English-medium programmes, which publish their own accepted-test tables.

Choosing your target score for the universities Chinese students apply to

The DET reports an overall score on the 10–160 scale in steps of five, plus four subscores — Literacy, Comprehension, Conversation and Production. Universities publish a minimum overall score, and many publish a minimum in each subscore too, which is where unprepared candidates are caught: an overall 120 with a Production of 95 fails a requirement that the headline number appears to meet.

Work backwards from the requirements on this page rather than aiming at a round number:

• 95–110 is the usual band for bachelor entry at many US state universities and at a range of Australian institutions.
• 110–125 covers most UK degree courses, where the requirement is often written as “overall 120, no subscore below 110”, and much of the Canadian intake.
• 120–135 is postgraduate and highly selective territory: 120 at Toronto, Waterloo, Queen’s and Ottawa, 125 at UBC and NYU, 130 at Duke, Cornell and Penn, 135 at Columbia.

Two China-specific rules are worth knowing whatever score you target. ID: Duolingo accepts only passports or resident identification cards in China, and states it will not accept any other document, including a Chinese driver’s licence. Payment: Alipay is accepted in China alongside major credit cards. And one common confusion: Duolingo’s language-learning app was pulled from Chinese app stores in 2021, but the Duolingo English Test is a separate product with its own China-specific rules. Send us your programme’s English page on WhatsApp and we will read the requirement with you.

DET or IELTS from China?

Once acceptance is settled, the choice comes down to format and to what each exam is valid for.

The honest counterweight: IELTS is accepted almost everywhere, including visa processes, and the DET is not. The sensible plan for most Chinese applicants is the DET for admissions, IELTS only where a visa or a conservative institution forces it.

Visa and registration rules to check before you rely on DET

A university accepting your score and an immigration department accepting it are two different questions.

• Australia: universities may accept DET for admission, but the Department of Home Affairs does not accept it for the subclass 500 visa — that needs IELTS, TOEFL iBT, PTE Academic or another listed test.
• United Kingdom: DET is not a UKVI SELT. Degree-level admission is normally assessed by the university itself, but a pre-sessional or below-degree course can need a SELT.
• Canada: the Student Direct Stream ended in November 2024, so the regular study permit applies and your institution decides what English evidence it wants.

Get it in writing from admissions, and see our complete DET guide for score reporting.

Studying online from China

Studying with an academy in another time zone only works if nothing depends on your being awake at a particular hour. Every Teachero lesson is recorded, and you can review the recording afterwards, so a live session you cannot attend is never a session you lose.

Classes are taught fully in English by certified instructors who specialise in international English exams — the environment the DET asks you to perform in. Speaking and Writing are corrected personally, WhatsApp covers questions between sessions, and you sit full mock tests before the real thing. Arabic-language support is available for Arabic speakers.

Three shapes: the standard course (more days, fewer hours per day), the intensive course (fewer days, more hours per day) and the private tailored course, one-to-one around your weakest questions — see also our online course overview and DET FAQ.

Paying for the course from China

Your Teachero course is paid by card online (Visa or Mastercard) from any country. From China that means a dual-currency card with international payments enabled — a UnionPay-only domestic card often fails at international merchants, and the fix is usually your bank’s international-payment setting rather than the merchant.

Other options are available on WhatsApp. Schedules are set per round — message us for the next round’s details.